Our Catkoli& Heritage in Texas
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glow with the red sunset. For two days the remains of the brave men burned before they were consumed. How long their ashes lay in the open and where their remains were finally buried were questions unsettled until 1936. Officially, Houston early in February of 1837 ordered Colonel Juan N. Seguin, in com- mand of the post at Bexar after the battle of San Jacinto, to collect the bones and ashes of the Alamo dead and bury them with appropriate military honors. Seguin reported that he had carried out the orders on February 25, 1837. The story of the -.elaborate ceremony was pub- lished on March 28 in the T elegrapli and T e:ias Register. According to this account, the remains were placed in a large coffin, which was taken to San Fernando Church, where they lay in state, shrouded by the Texas flag, and surmounted by a sword and rifle. On the afternoon of February 25, the large coffin was taken to the site of the pyres, successive volleys were fired by the military escort, and the heroes were finally buried with military honors. The newspaper did not state the place of the burial. Dr. John Sutherland a few years later declared this account a hoax, and claimed that early in February, 1837, Captain Lockhart and his company of rangers had gathered the ashes and charred bones when passing through San Antonio and buried them in a large coffin with due military honors in a peach orchard not far from the scene of their heroic death. 49 J. M: Rodriguez, however, published a third version, in which he declared that after the battle of San Jacinto Alcalde Francisco Ruiz ordered the remains collected and given proper burial. They "were tenderly gathered together," he says, "and placed beneath the sod." But where--he did not relate. 50 To complicate the matter, in 1889, General H. P. Bee asked Colonel Juan N. Seguin, then in his eighties, where the heroes of the Alamo were buried. Seguin replied briefly that he had "collected the fragments, placed them in an um, and buried it in the Cathedral of San Fernando, immediately in front of the altar-that is, in front of the railing and near the steps." On Tuesday, July 28, 1936, a group of workmen were making some repairs in the old San Fernando Cathedral. While digging just outside the sanctuary railing, they came upon a box-moulded and in a 49James T. Shields {editor), "John Sutherland's Account of the Fall of the Alamo," Dallas News, February 12, 19u. SOJ. M. Rodnguez, Memoirs, 7.
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